ColumnIn the world of fast food restaurants Chipotle has high aspirations, but will it really change the system?

I finally got around to watching the first episode of “Farmed and Dangerous” recently.

For those not in the know, “Farmed and Dangerous” is a comedy series about the world of industrial farming. Available on Hulu, it was all funded by Chipotle. This isn’t Chipotle’s first venture into the world of media. Last year the Mexican fast food chain released “The Scarecrow,” a short animated viral piece that’s intended to get us hating on industrial farms and loving the family ones.

The video earned Chipotle both accolades and negative critique, mostly because the video visually had a lot of pro-vegetarian messaging. Meanwhile you can still buy a meat filled burrito at the chain. As Elizabeth Weiss put it in The New Yorker, “but when Chipotle runs out of sustainable beef, a decidedly less happy cow could end up marinated and grilled and nestled beside our cilantro-lime rice.”

Now Chipotle has stepped it up a notch, producing a four episode series, and “Farmed and Dangerous” is set up as a comedic drama. The gist of it is this: big agriculture versus the little guy. In other words, Chipotle giving industrial agriculture a bit of a slap in the face.

I am all for critiquing the agricultural and food industry – that critique is much needed – and Chipotle is certainly going out on a very shaky limb by producing a series like this. And yet, there’s my cynical side which let’s out a disappointed sigh and says “but, at the end of the day, Chipotle is still a fast food business.”

Clearly there’s a difference between a Taco Bell Waffle Taco (yes, it is a waffle and sausage patty rolled in a taco shape and stuffed with eggs) and a Chipotle burrito, in fact it’s hard to imagine even putting Taco Bell and Chipotle in the same category. But at the same time I can’t help but sense a twinge of greenwashing. We’re talking about fast food after all.

How is Chipotle different from other fast food restaurants?

Chipotle restaurants don’t have freezers, which means getting fresh deliveries of ingredients. That’s many steps beyond most fast food restaurants. The chain is committed to its mantra of “Food with Integrity,” which means sourcing sustainably raised food. In a world where people live by fast food, we need chains like Chipotle.

In fact, Chipotle is positioned to make some big changes. As reported in Fast Company, “Chipotle is now the largest buyer of higher-priced pork, beef, and chicken from animals that have been naturally fed and humanely raised outside of the factory-farming system.”

But we can’t forget that Chipotle is still a big chain. Global in fact.

A friend of mine recounted a story of running into three English speaking women on a busy restaurant street in Paris. She kindly asked if they needed help and she listed off a few nearby gems. “Thanks… but we heard there was a Chipotle around here. Do you know where that is?” responded one of the women.

Chipotle. In Paris.

Granted it’s better than McDonald’s and Burger King. But still.

Let’s break this down simply:

Fast food restaurants are bad. Most of them serve overly processed food that’s sourced from God knows where. But people eat a lot of fast food. If we want to provide people with healthier food options, then part of that is providing healthier fast food options. Chipotle does that. But just because Chipotle is a smarter, more sustainable alternative to standard fast food chains, that shouldn’t keep us from calling it what it is: a fast food restaurant serving fast food. After all, in terms of nutritional numbers, a burrito at Chipotle is right up there with a Big Mac, maybe even a little worse than the burger with a bad name. Fast food is fast food, no matter what bucolic images you serve up with it.

Would the world be better with more Chipotle and less Burger King? Hell yes. Let’s hope that Chipotle really is a force of good. Our food industry could do with a bit of change. But at the same time, don’t go blindly consuming either, always remember to ask what you’re eating and where it came from. Because fast food is still fast food, and the likelihood that you are sitting down and taking the time to enjoy a full meal at Chipotle like you would a meal at home is quite small.

We live in a world of fast food restaurants and changing that world isn’t just about asking what those restaurants are serving. It also involves us thinking about our eating habits in general. And that requires less fast food overall.

Related on EcoSalon

Whole Foods Market, Trendy Vegetables and Food Gentrification: Foodie Underground

Behind the Label: Chipotle, Food With Integrity

Chipotle Labels GMOs… So Should You Still Eat There?

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Michael Saechang

The post Can Chipotle Change the World of Fast Food Restaurants? Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

Stroke and heart-attack inducing portions of unhealthy fats, serious hygiene issues and animal cruelty should be enough to keep you away from these 10 fast food chains.

Given that the nature of fast food requires it to be quite literally thrown together by low-paid employees using low-quality ingredients, it’s hard to find reasons to ever get food there in the first place. But let’s say you sometimes get a hankering for a certain type of fried chicken sandwich and some piping hot fries, and you just can’t resist hitting up the drive-through on the way home from work or in the midst of a long car trip. You might appreciate knowing, first, that certain chains will turn around and use your money to fight against gay marriage, while others base their branding on sexist stereotypes. And let’s be real: most of them are just plain gross. Here are 10 of the absolute worst.

Chik-fil-A: Anti-Gay, Anti-Kale, Egregious Misspeller

If Chik-fil-A was aiming to offend as many people as possible and make themselves out to be a comic book-worthy villain, they’ve succeeded, between anti-gay sentiments and trying to destroy a guy who just really loves kale. Chik-fil-A has long funded anti-gay groups and propositions including “ex-gay therapy.” Then, in 2011, it sued a Vermont-based folk artist for selling t-shirts and bumper stickers that say “Eat More Kale,” alleging that the phrase might  get mixed up with their own advertising tagline, “Eat Mor Chik’n.” Because it’s so easy to confuse family-farmed kale with factory-farmed fried chicken.

If you do get a hankering for a fried chicken sandwich, Chik-fil-A style, you don’t have to resort to slinking guiltily through one of their fast-food drive-thrus (closed on Sundays, because they’re extra-godly.) Make yourself a “Chik-fil-Gay sandwich with the help of YouTube chef Hilah Johnson. It’s bound to be better than the real thing.

McDonald’s: Global Disseminator of High-Fat, Low-Nutrition Junk

It’s hard to even call the slop that McDonald’s serves by the billions around the world food when a burger they made in 1996 still looks exactly the same 16 years later. McDonald’s meals are loaded with fat, calories and sodium, with so little nutrition that your pets’ food might actually be a healthier choice. The fast-food kingpin processes almost a million cows per year into hamburgers, making it a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, and supports the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. And have you ever wondered what’s in that secret sauce, anyway? 33 ingredients, including something called propylene glycol aginate.

Burger King: Dirtiest of All Fast Food Chains

Mmm – boot-flavored lettuce. We can’t lie to ourselves – the sort of thing that was documented in a photograph at an Ohio Burger King happens everywhere, including behind the closed doors of fine-dining restaurant kitchens. But recent headline-grabbing incidents aside, Burger King has repeatedly been deemed the dirtiest fast food chain of them all. A Dateline NBC investigation identified 241 critical health violations at 100 locations including employees not washing their hands, uncovered food in the fridge and grime and debris in the ice shoot. Furthermore, activists revealed in 2008 that Burger King has engaged in some tricky tactics to discredit efforts to improve horrific conditions suffered by migrant workers in Florida tomato fields.

Taco Bell: Low Quality Food, Racist Ads

This slinger of faux Mexican food actually came in last in the aforementioned Dateline NBC investigation with the least health violations out of 10 fast food chains, but that doesn’t mean it’s clean. Among the 91 violations discovered at 100 locations were dirty counters and rodent droppings. In November and December 2006, over 70 people in five states were sickened by bacteria-infested onions at Taco Bell restaurants. The chain is pushing a “fresh, healthy” angle with its new Cantina line, which attempts to mimic the higher quality food at the higher-end Chipotle chain. But while Chipotle uses hormone-free meats and organic produce when possible, Taco Bell skimps, and customers can tell: it consistently gets low quality food scores in customer surveys. Granted, the Cantina line hasn’t debuted just yet, but the same employees who toss around sloppy refried bean and nacho cheez Gorditas are going to be putting together those higher-end meals.

One thing Taco Bell has proven itself proficient at, other than convincing people that they want to eat tacos made out of Doritos: packing as many racial stereotypes into its advertising as possible.

KFC: Culinary Abominations Galore

Two words: Double Down. This disgusting monstrosity of a sandwich is now the very definition of fast food gluttony – a bacon and cheese sandwich encased in two hunks of fried chicken in lieu of bread. Its announcement on April Fool’s Day made it seem like a joke, but the sandwich was launched in the U.S. less than two weeks later. KFC is also responsible for the gastronomic abomination that is the Cheesy Bacon Bowl. In April, KFC had to pay out $8.3 million to the family of a little girl who was brain-damaged after contracting salmonella at one of its Australian branches. And of course, KFC has been the focus of a long-running PETA campaign called “Kentucky Fried Cruelty,” and for good reason: employees at a KFC supplier were filmed kicking chickens and throwing them against a wall.

Arby’s: High Calories, Not so Clean

Does one human finger in a sandwich – proven not to be a planted hoax by a money-hungry customer with a lawsuit gleaming in his eye – reflect on an entire restaurant chain? It does when that chain has hundreds of critical health and sanitation violations under its belt. So not only do Arby’s employees fail to wash their hands, they also fail to retrieve pieces of said hands when they’re accidentally removed by the meat slicer. More than 70 people were sickened with salmonella after eating at a Georgia Arby’s in 2007.

Arby’s is home to some of the most calorific fast food items in the nation, including the 740-calorie Beef N’ Cheddar with Pepper Bacon sandwich, which has both cheese sauce and something called “red ranch sauce.”

Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s: Monster Calorie Burgers, Sexist Ads

Carl’s Jr. has distinguished itself by trying to make grease and messy, dripping chemical-laden sauces sexy with ad campaigns featuring women like Paris Hilton and Sports Illustrated cover model Kate Upton, wherein the women are seen as something to be devoured, too. Sister restaurant Hardee’s has had its own sexist ads, like one that says “Guys don’t bake.” Both brands rely on marketing themselves as “manly,”associating masculinity with massive stacks of low-quality meat.

While Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s are the first fast food chains in the nation to offer turkey burgers, that’s hardly enough to make up for three of the unhealthiest fast food sandwiches in America: the Hardee’s Monster Thickburger (1420 calories), the Hardee’s Double Bacon Cheese Thickburger (1300 calories) and the Carl’s Jr. Double Six Dollar Burger (1520 calories.)

Wendy’s: Not as Healthy As You Think

With the help of a cute pigtailed mascot and a reputation that still hinges on a perception of old-fashioned quality after all these decades, Wendy’s is often considered to be one of the healthier fast food options. The truth is, Wendy’s is hardly healthier than its most-maligned competitor, McDonald’s, and it’s not even as clean. You might imagine that Wendy’s natural-cut sea salt fries sound like a refreshingly less-processed alternative to other fast food fries, but they actually have way more sodium at 630 milligrams in a large-sized serving. That’ll blow a huge hole in your recommended maximum daily intake of 2400 milligrams. The Triple Burger with Everything and Cheese is a more obviously unhealthy choice with 970 calories and 60 grams of fat, but you might not expect the Southwest Taco Salad to be as heart-attack-inducing as it is, with 645 calories, 38.5 grams of fat and 1565 milligrams of sodium.

Wendy’s came in at number three on Dateline NBC’s list of unsanitary fast food restaurants with 206 critical violations in 100 restaurants, including mice droppings on shelves and bare hands in contact with food.

Pizza Hut: More Unholy Food Combinations

Can’t decide between a fatty cheeseburger and a greasy slice of pizza? You’re in luck! At least, you are if you live in the Middle East, where Pizza Hut is offering a cheeseburger-stuffed pizza. British diners have access to an unholy pizza/hot dog mashup. But the Pizza Huts here in the states have plenty of their own unhealthy options, like the Triple Meat Italiano Pizza, which has 1,280 calories and 23 grams of fat.

And though it’s not on this list, Pizza Hut’s competitor Dominos deserves a mention thanks to its Chicken Carbonara Breadbowl Pasta, a giant wad of pizza dough topped with penne pasta, cream and cheese. It’s got 1,480 calories, 56 grams of fat and an amazing 2,220 milligrams of sodium – and yes, it’s meant for one person.

Jack in the Box: Marry Bacon. Or Don’t.

This chain was the setting for one of the most infamous fast-food-poisoning incidents of all time, an outbreak of E. coli that killed four children and sickened hundreds of people in 1993. Jack in the Box has upped its safety measures since then, implementing new testing mechanisms for the bacteria and increasing meat-cooking temperatures. But that doesn’t mean they’ve cleaned up their act altogether. They came in at number 6 on Dateline NBC’s list with 164 critical health and sanitation violations including several complaints of food-borne illness.

Jack in the Box isn’t trying to hide behind a facade of health at least. Ad Week called the chain’s “Marry Bacon” TV commercial” a love song to pig shavings, and that’s probably a nice way of putting it. In 2008, the nonprofit Cancer Project crowned Jack in the Box’s Junior Bacon Cheeseburger “the most unhealthful” menu item available at fast food restaurants in America. It’s got 23 grams of fat, 860 milligrams of sodium and a whole lot of bacon – which, the dietitians behind the list note, is associated with increased colorectal cancer risk.

Long John Silver’s: Stroke in a Cardboard Container

If there’s any food item that should really, really be as fresh as possible when you eat it, it’s probably fish. After all, just a few days past its prime, fish starts to get awfully stinky. So the idea of a fast food restaurant serving fried fish is bad enough as it is – but it might also give you a stroke. A 2010 study linked high rates of fried fish consumption to the stroke belt in the South, where the death rate from strokes is abnormally high. There’s no doubt that fish can be good for you, but not when it’s covered in oily breading. And like many fast food restaurants, Long John Silver’s still uses trans fats to fry its greasy foods. Their food is almost oily enough to make you believe that this satirical story about the chain buying already-oiled fish from the Gulf of Mexico after the BP spill is true.

Photo: keoni101

The post 10 Fast Food Chains to Steer Clear Of appeared first on EcoSalon.

A closer look at Chipotle’s ode to sustainable eating.

For the past decade, Chipotle Mexican Grill has distinguished itself from fast food competitors by emphasizing Food With Integrity, a commitment to serving customers “the very best ingredients, all raised with respect for the animals, the environment, and the farmers.”

As a result, Chipotle has become that rare fast food brand that is trusted by sustainable foodies for using fresh, natural ingredients. But it’s certainly not perfect. The burrito chain has also been criticized for its approach to improving workers’ rights, as well as its unhealthily large portion sizes. 

Chipotle’s Food With Integrity commitment encompasses the use of naturally raised meat, organic produce, and dairy without added hormones, with an emphasis on local sourcing. Funny enough, though, most patrons are unaware of Food With Integrity. In a 2007 Business Week interview, founder and CEO Steve Ells estimated that only 5 percent of customers know anything about the campaign. “The rest come in because Chipotle tastes great, or they like spicy food, or they think it’s a great value, or it’s convenient, or the place looks cool.”

In fact, Chipotle only just recently started emphasizing its sustainable values in its marketing. Last year, it created a stop-motion animated short film called “Back to the Start,” which was recently broadcast as the company’s first ever national television ad during Sunday’s GRAMMY Awards. Set to a cover of Coldplay’s “The Scientist” by country star Willie Nelson, the animated short depicts the growth of a factory farm, before its owner has a change of heart and decides to operate more sustainably.

Though his green marketing budget is slim, Ells himself is an outspoken advocate for sustainable farming and ethical animal treatment, and he frequently expresses his hope that Chipotle’s efforts will spur an industry-wide revolution:

Finding sustainable sources for food in each region can be difficult. But we are committed to serving food made with the finest ingredients available. The more consumers understand the benefits of eating food from more sustainable sources, the more they’re going to expect it from everyone.

It’s evident that Ells and his Chipotle empire are mighty good at talking the talk. But do they walk the walk? Here, a look at the good, the bad, and the questionable aspects of one of the country’s quickest growing fast food restaurants.

The Good

Today, Chipotle serves more “naturally raised” meat – defined as open-range, antibiotic free, and with a vegetarian diet – than any other restaurant chain. The company sources 100 percent of its pork and “much”  (approximately 80 to 85 percent) of its beef and chicken from suppliers who adhere to these values, including the highly respected Niman Ranch in California.

In addition, 40 percent of Chipotle’s beans are organic, with a small percentage grown using conservation tilling methods. And in 2011, the company announced that it would use more than 10 million pounds of local produce from farms within 350 miles of the restaurants where the produce will ultimately be served, including bell peppers, jalapenos, oregano, red onions, and romaine lettuce.

To prove Chipotle’s freshness point, none of their restaurants have freezers, microwave ovens, or can openers. They do, however, have open kitchens for even further transparency.

The Bad

Since 2006, Chipotle has faced protest from sustainability advocates because of its refusal to join other fast food chains in a coalition to improve wages and conditions for Florida tomato pickers. In 2009, 33 individuals and groups, including Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser and Food Inc. director Robert Kenner, signed a public letter to Ells, calling on him to support the efforts of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a grassroots farm worker organization, by signing onto the Campaign for Fair Food. The letter challenged:

Your company has shown admirable leadership in working with – and incubating – meat suppliers willing to meet your higher standards. But your failure to do that same hard work in the Florida tomato industry – together with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) – threatens to render your announcement an empty gesture aimed more at public relations damage control than an effort to make real change.

Ells responded that the CIW “doesn’t see the bigger picture” of fundamentally changing the fast food world, though CIW has made landmark progress in improving workers rights, even earning a Hero Acting to End Modern-Day Slavery Award from the U.S. State Department in 2010.

Ultimately, Chipotle entered into an agreement with East Coast Farms, Florida’s largest tomato producer, where it agreed to pay an additional penny per pound of tomatoes picked. Despite repeated pleas from big names in the sustainability community, it still hasn’t signed onto the Campaign for Fair Food to address other workers rights.

The Questionable

Though the ingredients are fresh and more-or-less well-cultivated, the Chipotle Burrito has become an object of controversy because of its nutritional content, landing on lists of both the best foods and the worst foods.

On Chipotle’s website, nutritional facts are broken down by ingredient – helpful for build-your-own-burrito aficionados. However, this breakdown disguises the fact that a basic pork burrito with rice, vegetables, cheese, guacamole, and salsa can top out at more than 1,300 calories – more than twice that of a McDonald’s Big Mac. The burrito also contains 31 grams of fat, 105 milligrams of cholesterol, 102 grams of carbohydrates, and a whopping 2600 mg of sodium – more than your average daily allowance.

Experts remind us that even fresh, organic food must be consumed in moderation. Though Chipotle’s past efforts have made it a pioneer in sustainable fast food, the next step might be to adjust portion sizes to make them more in line with a healthy balanced diet.

SEE ALSO:

Behind the Label: H&M’s Conscious Collection

Behind the Label: McDonald’s See What We’re Made Of Campaign

Behind the Label: Levi Strauss’ E-Valuate Program

The post Behind the Label: Chipotle, Food With Integrity appeared first on EcoSalon.